Richard Nickels of Giving and Sharing Ministries

Critical Review of 

"DO ALL RACES SHARE IN SALVATION?"

by: Dan Gayman of the Church of Israel

What is the origin of the races?  The Bible gives few clues.  Was Adam the first human being?  Most professing Christians believe that Adam was the first man, created by God in the Garden of Eden.  However, there is a variant view, with substantial theological implications.

Dan Gayman and his group in Missouri came into the Sabbath in 1987.  A dynamic speaker, Gayman received glowing reviews for his presentation at the Friends of the Sabbath seminar in Sydney, Australia, in July, 1996.  In his book, Sabbath Under Crossfire, pages 276-277, Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi uses Gayman’s record of his church’s conversion to the Sabbath as a sterling example.  There are indeed positive aspects of Gayman’s ministry.  But, on the subject of race, Gayman’s views are diametrically opposed to our understanding of the Bible.

Gayman’s Wrong Ideas on Race

In summary, Gayman believes that non-white races originated before Adam.  God created them along with other living creatures.  They can know God, worship God, but can never compre­hend deep spiritual truths.  Gayman be­lieves that Adam was white and ALL his descendents are Caucasians.  Only Adamites, Gayman holds, can have a covenant relationship with God, and can receive eternal life in His Kingdom.  Nonwhite races do not sin, and are not under the penalty of breaking God’s Law, and hence, do not need salvation.  According to Gayman, Jesus Christ died only for white Caucasians, and there is no Bible support for foreign missions to the third world.  The Christianity of Gayman’s Church of Israel is only for white people.

Because these racial views are so twisted and pernicious, I will take the time to answer Dan Gayman’s false teachings on race.

Origin of Races: After His Kind

The core of Gayman’s theo­logy of race centers on the issue of the origin of the races.  He says, “The belief that all races descended from Adam is rank evolu­tion  .  .  . No Christ­ian can buy this outrage­ous and unscriptural teaching,” p. 145 of Do All Races Share in Salvation?  He points out what to him, are vast differences between the races.  “To believe that all of these evolved from one common beginning is ludicrous, alien to all common sense,” ibid.

In studying the Biblical account of Creation, one is struck with the frequent use of the phrase, “after his [or their] kind,” Genesis 1:21, 24-25.  And then, in verse 26, mankind was created in the image of God, after the God kind.  In Genesis 6:19, 20-22, Noah was instructed to bring into the ark birds and animals “after their kind.”  The Hebrew word for “kind” is Strong’s #4327, meen, meaning “to sort, or portion out, or divide.”  The animal “kinds” cannot mix, there is a genetic divide created by God.  Even if different kinds are forced to mate (e.g., donkey and horse), the result is usually sterile (e.g., a mule).

Dogs come in many shapes, sizes, and colors (black, white, brown, yellow).  Noah did not have to take the many distinct varieties of dogs onto the ark.  They are all the dog kind.  Human beings are of the same kind.  In fact, there appear to be more differ­ences between dog varieties than human varieties.  Do kinds produce a great multitude of varieties?  Certainly, they do!  This kind of “evolution” does occur.  But a dog never becomes an ape, and a monkey never becomes a human.

So, how did God create the different races?  Gayman does not know, and admits that “the Bible is silent on the development [and origin] of the other [nonwhite] races,” p. 152.  “If the Bible includes the record of how the non-Adamic races were created, it is found in Genesis 1:25, where the chay neffesh creation, or living creatures, are named.  The living creatures here could have been biped as well as quadruped,” p. 150.  Since the Bible is silent with regard to the origin of races, why should we join Gayman in supposing (without proof) that every race was created separately and distinctly?  There is no proof races were created at all.  With no proof, Gayman holds as a postulate and presupposition (his own admission), that “The Bible was not written for all the races of the earth,” p. 147.

The word man (Strong’s #120, adam) in Genesis 1:26 and 2:7 comes from the same Hebrew root word, Strong’s #119, adam, meaning, “to show blood in the face, flush or turn rosy, be dyed red, red (ruddy).”  Since many nonwhites do not blush to the extreme that whites do, therefore, according to Gayman, they are not descended from Adam because Adam was Caucasian, white-skinned and able to turn rosy and ruddy.

Dangerous Lack of Historical Knowledge

With no proof whatsoever, Gayman believes only Caucasians are descended from Adam, and the Bible is a book only of the generations of Adam (which he believes is the white race), Genesis 5:1-3.  Gayman says, “There are no genealogical tables giving the history of the Egyptians, Chinese, Hindus, Japanese, Negroid, and others because the Bible is the history of the Adamic race in general, and Israel in particular,” p. 149.  Is Gayman’s Bible lacking Genesis 10, which gives the Table of Nations descended from Noah’s son, Japheth, Ham, and Shem?  Three times the Bible refers to Egypt as the “land of Ham,” Psalm 105:23, 27, 106:22.  The word, “Ham” in the Hebrew is cham, Strong’s #2526, meaning “hot” (from their tropical habitat).

If Gayman is correct that white people alone are Adamites, and nonwhites are not descended from Adam, then he must prove where the non-Adamites are living today.  The Genesis 10 nations are all descended from Noah, who was descended from Adam, and repopulated the whole earth after the flood.  “These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood,” Genesis 10:32.  If the whole earth was filled with Adamites after the Flood, where did the non-Adamites go?  Like others of his ilk, Gayman probably believes non-Adamites were on the Ark of Noah as servants (beasts). Of course, there is not a hint of such a fantasy in the entire Bible.  We must not base our whole theology on unproven presuppositions as Gayman does.

Like a house of cards, Gayman’s whole theory of race and the Bible is built on the theory, unproven and presupposed, that God created the races each for a different purpose, whites to salvation, and nonwhites to secondary status and physical life only.  Since the Bible is silent on the origin of the races, the question is one of interpreting history.

History is not Dan Gayman’s strong suit.  Here are some of the pathetically erroneous historical “proofs” he gives:  “The question of a multi-racial Church never entered the minds of the Churchmen who occupied the pulpits and altars of the Living Church from the days of the Apostles to the time of the Protestant Reformation.”  What does Gayman do with Acts 8 where the Ethiopian eunuch was converted, and Acts 13:1, where Simeon called Niger (black) was a prophet and teacher?  Gayman: “A quick survey of Church history confirms the fact [sic] that until the dawning of the 17^th century, Christianity was confined to the Caucasian population of Western Asia, Europe, Scandin­avia and the British Isles.”  Perhaps Gayman has not read about the black Ethiopian Sabbath-keepers, the St. Thomas Sabbath-keeping Christians of western India, Chinese and Japanese and Filipino Sabba­tarians, all of whom existed 900 to 1000 years before the 17^th Century.  See the book, Truth Triumph­ant, by Benjamin Wilkinson, $12.95 from Giving & Sharing.  A poor understand­ing of the history of true Christianity has damaging effects!  Gayman is ignorant of critical historical facts, which destroy his unfounded racial theories.

Gayman: “Every race was created to know their Creator in a different way and by a different means,” p. 28.  In other words, he believes religion is genetic.  Negroes, Gayman believes, have always worshipped the Creator in various forms of voodooism, ancestral spirits, and physical objects.  Any attempt to alter and change their method of knowing and worshipping God has not remained permanent.  Left alone, “they always revert to the gods of their ancestors.”  He says whites fight God when they try to convert nonwhites.  Gayman has the audacity to believe that God created Arabs to believe in the Moslem faith, Orientals to believe in Buddha, and black Zulus to worship the gods of Voodoo.  “Christianity is the religion of the Caucasian race,” p. 29.  Nonwhite temporary Christian “converts,” he says, quickly mold their newfound Christianity into the image of their cultural gods.

The “god” of Pastor Gayman has pro­gram­med nonwhites to naturally follow false religions, yet these false religions are deemed acceptable to the Creator and the God-ordained means for nonwhites to know the true God as Creator and worship Him.  This is a purely Satanic belief!  See II Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2.

Have not white Caucasians butchered the faith of Jesus Christ in more ways than non-whites ever thought of doing?  Certainly they have!  The blasphemy of Roman Catholicism stands as a stark testimony refuting Gayman’s utter lack of historical knowledge.  Today, whites in the Western world are turning from Christian principles to rank occultism and paganism, while many nonwhites are flocking to Christ and the Bible.  Gayman is woefully ignorant of the worldwide explosion of interest in God and the Bible by non-whites, a movement which began in spite of, not because of, white missionaries.

Gayman falsely says that after 200 years of white missionary activity, Africa is stuck in its variant forms of Voodooism.  However, the book, Sabbath Roots: The African Connection, by Charles E. Bradford (avail­able from Giving & Sharing for $15), shows that multitudes of black Sabbath-keeping Christians existed for many hundreds of years before white missionaries ever set foot on the sub-Saharan continent.  Today, about 340 million Africans profess Christianity. Accord­ing to reliable estimates, Africa has the world’s largest concentration of Sabbath-keepers, some twenty million people, of which only about three million are Seventh Day Adventists. The Sabbath is natural to black Africans; they have a natural proclivity to accepting God’s Holy Sabbath. God is doing a work in Africa!  Gayman says black Africans cannot maintain their Christian religion.  But, the Ashantis of Ghana, for example, have maintained Sabbath-keeping for many hundreds, probably thousands, of years.  Truly converted nonwhites today are the strongest proof that Gayman’s racial theories are dead wrong.

Once again, it is dangerous to be so ignorant of historical facts!

Yahweh Will Have All Men Saved

 Gayman’s circular reasonings and glaring contradictions have deceived him into think­ing he has an answer to most of the Scriptural objections one can raise against his false theory, that salvation is limited to white people.

Galatians 3:29 says, “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”  Gayman would translate this verse to mean, “Only if you are Abraham’s seed can ye be Christ’s,” but that is NOT what it says, or means.  This verse proves that salvation is not limited to the physical seed of Abraham.  Those who are called of God must give up their pagan, heathen ways, and become spiritually the seed of Abraham.  God, the Holy One of Israel, is “The God of the whole earth . . .” Isaiah 54:5, not only white Caucasians.  In the World Tomorrow, the whole earth will keep the Feast of Tabernacles, including Egypt, the land of Ham, Zechariah 14.  Blacks from Egypt will still be black, and worship along with Israel and Assyria,Isaiah 19:23-25.

Acts 17:26 says that God “hath made of one blood [one creation of mankind] all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.”  We all go back to Adam, not Adam and other biped living creatures.

Romans 11:17 speaks of Israel, the “natural olive tree,” and the Gentiles, “a wild olive tree,” who, contrary to their nature, became grafted into the natural olive tree (Israel), verse 24.  Gayman says the Bible uses the word, “Gentiles” to refer to Israel in dispersion, the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel.  But, this is a contradiction.  He told us that Israel has a natural inclination toward God, that Christianity is the religion of the Caucasian race.  If so, how could the Gentiles be the lost tribes of Israel who need to be grafted into the natural olive tree?  The Gentile Ephesian converts to Christianity were formerly “strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, andwithout God in the world,” Ephesians 2:12. With no proof, Gayman claims the Gentile Cornelius who was converted in Acts 10, was a genetic Israelite.

The first Bible use of the word, “Gentile” is in Genesis 10:5, referring to Japheth’s sons.  Japheth was not an Israelite.  Micah 5:8 says “the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people . . . .”  Matthew 10:5-6 gives Christ’s instructions to the Apostles, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles. . . . But gorather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel [Israel in dispersion].”  Luke 21:24 says, “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”  When has this happened?  Jerusalem is not run by Israel in dispersion.  The Lost 10 Tribes are not Gentiles, as Gayman claims.

When you have a wrong Bible teaching, there is a temptation to attempt to force all Scripture to conform to your theory.  Exodus 12:48 shows that a stranger [Strong’s #1616, ger, “alien, foreigner”] that sojourns with Israel, and wants to keep the Passover, may do so if he and all his males are circumcised.  Gayman says the “stranger” is an Israelite born outside the Promised Land.  However, Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple asks God to answer the prayers of “a stranger, that is not of Thy people Israel,” I Kings 8:41-43.  One of the cursings that will fall upon Israel for disobedience to the Eternal’s laws is that “The stranger [ger] that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low,” Deuteronomy 28:43.

I Timothy 2:4 says the God of Scripture “Who will have all men [not only white people] to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”  The “Great Commission” to the Church is, “Go ye therefore, and teach ALL nations [ethnos, Strong’s #1484, “foreign, non-Jewish, pagan, Gentile, heathen, nation], baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy [Spirit],” Matthew 28:19.  Again, Mark 16:15 reads, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” (See also Colossians 1:23).  Gayman says the “nations” to whom we are to preach the Gospel, are limited to the two houses of Israel.  Revelation 2:26, 5:9, 7:9, and many, many other Scriptures say just the opposite.

In Revelation 14:6-7, we see that the first angel has “the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”  In Gayman’s view, this angel is wasting his time because nonwhites cannot comprehend the Gospel.  The Third Angel’s message of verses 9-12 indicates, “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark . . . The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.”  Nonwhites can worship the beast.  Their punishment will be the same as whites who receive the mark of the beast.  Same punishment, same reward.

The 144,000 special converts of Revela­tion 7:1-8 are followed by “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, [which] stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. . . . These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” verses 9-17.  Out of all nations, kindreds, and tongues, converts will turn to the Almighty, not to their native voodoo religion with which Gayman says they are stuck.

Racial Boundaries

 According to Gayman, nonwhites should not be ruling any nation on earth.  In the beautiful “Song of Moses” of Deuteronomy 32, the old patriarch says, “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.  For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance,” verses 8-9.  The earth is divided into lands for Israel, and lands for non-Israelite nations, and all are sons of Adam.  However, blacks rule mid and southern Africa.  If they are non-Adamites as Gayman says, then something is wrong with these verses.  There should be Caucasians ruling all Africa. And the Chinese have been squatting on the land of China for thousands of years, since the land should belong to one or more of the so-called Caucasian sons of Adam.  What a tragic perversion of Scripture!    Dan Gayman’s interpretation of Deuteron­omy 32:8-9 produces a powerless God who has not set the bounds of peoples and nations.

On page 171, Gayman says that the Moabites during the time of Balaam “had mongrelized themselves with a variety of heathen peoples.”  On page 179, he says, “Blood pollution is forever; it’s irreversible!”  Yet, on page 189, he says hundreds of years later, Ruth the Moabitess, wife of Boaz, in the lineage of David and Jesus, was racially pure.   Here again, he blatantly contradicts himself.

Jeremiah 31:27 says, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.”  Gayman says this is a prophecy of racial mixing justbefore the return of Christ.  However, the context precludes this interpretation.  This is a prophecy of the timeafter the return of the Messiah, when unified Israel and Judah, who have returned after national captivity, verses 7-11, will repopulate the earth.  God will plant Israel and Judah to be the model nation, and numbers of men and beasts will be multiplied after much devastation.  In no way does this predict racial mixing before the return of Christ.  Nonwhites are not “beasts” as Gayman claims.

Gayman does not define the bounds of what he believes to be the Adamic (Caucas­ian) race.  Bounds should be largely defined by Shem, Ham and Japheth and the sixteen grandsons of Noah.

 

I have chosen to omit a lengthy part of Mr. Nichols Review here because I have already addressed Genesis 6 in my article "The Two Seeds Heresy." Mr. Nichols comments on this passage are essentially the same as mine. If you wish to read this content of his Review of Dan Gayman's Book, you can read it at this link

www.cograce.org/fair_and_balanced/Richard_nickels_review.htm

 

Mr. Nickels Concludes

Hate Group?

One of the most abused phrases in the modern world is the term, “hate group.”  Liberals will label almost anybody they don’t like as a “hate group.”  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines,” October, 1999, page, 3, this is the American government definition: “Hate Group — An organization whose primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization, e.g., the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party.” This is a good definition of “hate group.”

Using this definition, Dan Gayman’s Church of Israel can in no way be classified as a hate group.  In fact, Gayman teaches that all races should be appreciated and respected, since they are creations of the Almighty.  The Church of Israel’s statement of beliefs says, “We hold no malice or hatred for other races.  However, we choose to worship with our own ethnic people….”  Although I vehemently disagree with Gayman on the subject of race, it would be false to accuse him of hate.If a planeload of blacks crashed on their property, I am sure that Gayman and his followers would be quick to help relieve suffering, and prevent further loss of life

 

LASITER COMMENTARY: Mr. Gayman may believe that MOST "all races should be appreciated and respected, since they are creations of the Almighty" but I would strongly suggest that this does not include the Race of Jews. This ministry does not believe that those who call themselves "Jews" today are a creation of God, but are actually the children of the devil. Jerry Gentry's article the "TWO SEEDS" concludes with slanderous accusations against the race of "Jews." Mr. Gentry served as one of Gayman's Pastors until he left the Church of Israel and began the Church in the Wilderness Ministry. In his article, he says of the Jewish Race -this"unlawful, out of kind seed of the Serpent has continued to grow among the wheat of God, all the way down through history. This is the usurer race. This is the merchandising race. This is the race that corrupts music. This is the cheating race that lives by a vile book called the Talmud. This race has inflamed hatred and enmity with "her seed" of Adam's race since that eventful day in the Garden. This race was at various times kicked out en masse from the major nations across Europe." I do not know if "exposing the Jews as Satan's spawn" is the "primary purpose" for ministries such as these, but it is clearly an important part of their message. By their very nature comments such as these "promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race." END OF COMMENTARY

 

Purpose of Israel: Servant People

 Israel is special to the Eternal.  They are special because they have a special job to do.  If Israelites are racially destroyed, they cannot perform the responsibility God called them to do.  Deuteronomy 7:6-8 explains, “For thou art [are to become] an holy people unto the Lord thy God:  the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special [Hebrew: segullah, Strong’s #5459, ‘to shut up (because it is precious), wealth, treasure, jewel’] people unto Himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.  The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the Lord loved you, and because He would keep the oath which He had sworn unto your fathers. . . .”  They were to become a “king­dom of priests, and an holy nation,” Exodus 19:5-6.  In other words, Israel is God’s instru­ment to share His Truth and way of life with all other peoples.

Isaiah 43:10 adds, “Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen.”

God gave His statutes and judgments to Israel for a purpose: “Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.  For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them. . .” Deuteronomy 4:6-7.

Do the marriages of the Anglo-Saxon peoples of North America, Western Europe, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand further the advancement of the purpose of Israel?  May God guide His people to make wise marital unions.  As Gayman properly concludes, it would be wrong for us to judge another person as “racially unfit” for member­ship in the Church of God.  Let God be the judge, as we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, Philippians 2:12.